Keir Starmer and the Covid voice coach: Does anyone care?

Read time: 5 mins

In brief…

• Keir Starmer denies breaking lockdown rules in a Christmas Eve meeting with a voice coach, who potentially broke Covid rules to attend the masked meeting.
• The News Agents say the lack of interest in the story is due to the comparison to ‘partygate’ which ended Boris Johnson’s time as PM, and how serious that situation felt in comparison.
• The UK is in a place now where they no longer want to think about the pandemic, or the situation the country lived through, they say.

What’s the story?

Keir Starmer has denied breaking Covid lockdown rules to meet a voice coach in December 2020, but honestly, at this point, does anyone care?

The then-leader of the opposition met Leonie Mellinger at Labour's headquarters on Christmas Eve in the first winter of the pandemic to prepare for a Brexit press conference. At the time she was considered a key worker under rules made by the Tory government, and both reportedly wore masks during the meeting.

The story has made news headlines in the UK press, with some focusing on Mellinger moving between areas with differing lockdown 'tiers' to attend the meeting, while more alarmist outlets such as GB News asked viewers if the prime minister should resign.

But, The News Agents say, it hasn't come close to sparking the outrage that erupted after the 10 Downing Street 'partygate' scandal emerged, despite the attempts of the right-wing press to wring a final drop of outrage from the Covid years.

"Partygate was different," says Jon Sopel.

"Boris was the Prime Minister of the time who had to impose the rules on the rest of the country, and it was so flagrant that those rules were not being respected in Downing Street.

"I think that there was something about Boris Johnson as prime minister that made it unique."

Jon says he couldn't imagine the same thing happening under any other Prime Minister of recent memory.

"Are we thinking of it differently, because it was Starmer and a voice coach rather than Boris Johnson and a party, or have we all got a bit further away from the mania of what lockdown rules felt like," asks Emily Maitlis.

Why was partygate so different?

While most of the country (and indeed, the world) was under lockdown restrictions during most of 2020 and 2021, inside Downing Street, Boris Johnson and his staff were partying hard, with reports of suitcases full of alcohol being dragged into the property.

Johnson, leading daily Covid briefings at the time, and setting rules on how British people had to behave under lockdown conditions, denied any of this happened, until evidence proved otherwise.

"Partygate went against the whole sobriety of the time," says Emily.

"It confirmed in people's minds an image they already had of Boris Johnson, which was somebody who didn't think the rules applied to him.

"Also it was about the misleading of Parliament, it was the fact that he had lied about it, and he'd done so in Parliament to all his colleagues."

Lewis believes it didn't need to be that way, and thinks Johnson's time as PM could have lasted longer if the situation had been handled differently.

Johnson resigned in 2022 following a number of scandals and an investigation into his handling of 'partygate', referring to it as a "witch hunt" against him.

"I still think that if Johnson and No. 10 at the time had been more transparent, I think it would have worked out differently, I really do," says Lewis.

"What we saw in that period was an enormous willingness from the public to forgive, particularly the government, on all manner of things."

Although Emily says the trauma of the time, including many grieving family members being forced to sit alone at the funerals of loved ones, was too much of an "emotional clash" between the images and footage that emerged from the Downing Street parties.

What's The News Agents' take?

The Prime Minister hasn't had the scandal-free ride many might have expected of his time in Downing Street, but The News Agents don't believe this Covid voice coach controversy is one that will cause him too much concern.

"Surely this is in the rear view mirror now," says Jon.

"I think there are things that Keir Starmer has done wrong and is rightly being pilloried for – like accepting a whole ton of free clothes, that was madness. Optically, it was absolutely awful.

"I think this is gone. It's done, let's move on."

Lewis suggests that since Johnson paid such a high price, then there is an argument that Starmer does the same.

But Jon says, for most people, the very idea of Covid is a "horrible episode" that we no longer want to revisit.

"Aren't we in a phase now where we just don't want to remember that period of our lives?"

"I'm amazed at how little art, theatre, film, TV is being set in COVID. It's like it's too recent.

"It was a traumatic period."

Jon adds that apart from the staunch anti-Labour, anti-Starmer pockets of the UK, this story is going nowhere, and the PM will emerge unscathed from his personal Covid blip.

"At the most marginal level, people who already have a low opinion of Keir Starmer will be confirmed in their view," he says.

"But does it shift the dial, particularly in one direction or another? It doesn't feel like it's got resonance.

"It doesn't feel like it's got traction. It doesn't feel like people are talking about this in a kind of active way."

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